


All Work, no play

by Cards_Slash



Series: Second Verse [13]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Protective Team, Protectiveness, Team Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24021397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: Finally, after a week of non-stop hell spent fighting for their lives, they have the chance to rest.  Or they thought they did.  Demonstrating a truly startling lack of wisdom, Black Badge shows up ten minutes late to the party demanding a "sample" to take back to headquarters.
Relationships: Doc Holliday/Bobo Del Rey | Robert Svane, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Series: Second Verse [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632727
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	All Work, no play

Waverly had not volunteered. The most unfortunate side-effect of being the _nicest_ and the _youngest_ sister was that she got sent to do the things that nobody else wanted to do. Wynonna had called _not it_ before they’d even gotten to the bar with some justification about how she was still trying to bleach the image of semi-naked men out of her brain. 

(And if everyone that had ever met Wynonna had all collectively rolled their eyes at the same time, that was simply because it would take a far more traumatizing sight than two relatively attractive semi-naked men in bed together to make Wynonna want to forget.)

Dolls had not said that he _wouldn’t_ go and knock on the door but he didn’t have to when the implication was that he would simply turn around and walk out before he’d agree to chance seeing old-timey penises.

The breakfast they’d made at the homestead was spread out like a proper meal on the last remaining bar tables, so the only thing that stalling was going to get them was cold gravy.

She’d said, “fine, _I’ll_ go.”

It was a lot easier to brave when she was fed up and downstairs. Now she was upstairs with nobody looking at her with any expectation, her bravery faltered into the pit of her stomach. She didn’t have an issue with seeing naked men (although she was not presently as interested as she once had been) in general. However, she would like to keep her streak of having never seen Doc nor Bobo naked going for as long as possible. 

When she finally did knock it was just a touch on the quiet side, almost as if her knuckles were apologizing for the intrusion. It gave her plenty of time to practice what she’d say when she got back downstairs, about how it didn’t appear like anyone was still in the room. Or how they must have tuckered one another out from all that vigorous sex they were having. Maybe she’d just say that she heard the sound of snoring through the door. But her only chance for escape was ruined when the door was yanked open. 

Doc was wearing nothing but a sheet held tight around his waist by his own clenched fist. His hair had the look of having been fluffed up with a pillow and stood on end by reckless fingers pulling at it. There was a faint ring of teeth marks on his collarbone that she couldn’t _not_ stare at. “To what do we owe this early morning visit?” He was _smoking_ as he leaned forward into the door with the faintest air of amused annoyance.

Waverly couldn’t see into the room (because she was actively trying not to) but she could hear the sound of Bobo’s voice grumbling something. “We brought breakfast,” she said. 

The key to always being thought of as nice was making sure you smiled no matter what you were seeing. She’d had plenty of practice smiling at Champ while he was being nothing but an idiot so smiling at Doc while he stood there looking like an advertisement for sex wasn’t _difficult_.

“That was very kind of you,” Doc said. Bobo mumbled something else that made Doc’s mouth twitch in a grin. “We will be down in a moment.”

“Take your time.” Maybe take a shower, she wanted to say. Maybe brush your hair. Maybe try not to come downstairs looking like a walking orgasm. 

\--

Wynonna had known Howard before he was a revenant. Or maybe she meant that she had known of Howard before she found out he was a revenant. Knowing him _before_ he was one would require more time-travel than she was capable of at the moment. (Namely, any time travel at all. Because she wasn’t capable of any.) 

The point being that Wynonna had known _of_ Howard, the way you knew of any man often seen sitting out of the way at the bar at five thirty in the afternoon every single day. Rain, shine, sleet, snow: it didn’t matter what was happening outside, Howard was always to be found sipping his half-off happy hour beverage in the corner. 

Because that was the sort of man that Howard had appeared to be. The not quite clean-cut because he forgot to get a trim last week so a little shaggier than was preferred for an office but but you could get buy with it if you used a little hair gel type. He had the vibe of a man who ate lunch at his desk alone because all his friends were the anonymous online types. He had two lap dogs and he paid someone to take them for walks while he was at work, and he always tipped the dog walker even though they both knew that the dogs hadn’t been taken out of the house in at least three months.

Yeah, Howard had the air of a very intelligent pushover. So she was still coming to terms with how the man (who this very minute was eying the breakfast bar like a man mentally reviewing his taxes) had done something so awful in his early life that he got shot by Wyatt Earp. 

The man had been to hell, and he looked like he’d apologize for using strong language if he accidentally let slip so much as a h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

“Is it rude to ask someone what sort of crime they were into before they got shot?” Wynonna whispered. 

Dolls, who could not reasonably be expected to chill out regardless of the fact he’d been shot two days ago, looked up from his relentless attempt to make far too many different styles of paper plates stack up neatly together. No matter how many different ways he rearranged those plates, the oval ones were too narrow to allow the round ones to nest inside and there wasn’t enough space for the oval ones to sit by themselves. But they didn’t have enough plates without the oval ones. “Yes,” he said. But also, “who?”

“Howard.”

“Howard? Which one’s Howard?” He followed Wynonna’s hopefully subtly pointed finger to the man in question. “White collar crime.”

“What the hell was white collar crime in the old west?” Wynonna hissed at him.

Dolls didn’t see the point in answering her very good question when he could go back to trying to force plates together that were never going to fit. 

Howard was the only face she had a name for. Well, and Hui but he was easy enough to differentiate because he was still standing behind the bar glaring at them like they were there to rob him. The other three had names (David, Dowdy and Lawrence) but since they’d all been introduced together in a line with absolutely no name tags to speak of, and she had shortly thereafter been in an hours-long gunfight she couldn’t _remember_ which was which. 

So she was just _guessing_ when it came to names, but the little one that has been absently moving up and down the spread of food like a mouse eating corn on the cob was _probably_ Dowdy. He had a face that was less exciting than drying paint but a sort of twinkle in his eye that suggested he would be the sort of man who didn’t understand that a nickname like Dowdy was meant to be an insult. He would be that weird kid in the class who thought everyone called him shitbreath _affectionately_.

“Smells good,” the kid said as he came to a stop in front of the biscuits. His hands were folded behind his back like he’d been smacked with a spoon too many times in his life. He just couldn’t seem to stand still because his feet started drifting down the line again. “We might not have to wait for the Boss, you know. We didn’t see him barely at all yesterday. Just that once when they went to get food, I guess. Of course we didn’t hear anything but we took the precaution of--”

“Dudley!” Dolls all but shouted, “right? Dudley?”

“Dowdy,” he said.

“I’m sure they’ll just be a minute,” Dolls said with no authority.

Dowdy straightened up to his (unimpressive) full height to arch one of his eyebrows at that statement. His face seemed to fall asleep on itself for a moment, but his lips twitched at the edges as the words, “maybe they’re _hungry_ ,” oozed out of his mouth.

Waverly showed up a minute late to save the day, but Wynonna was happy enough to have anyone near her that hadn’t gone to hell and back, “maybe we should go ahead and let everyone start eating. I’m sure they’ll just be a minute. They won’t mind.”

Wynonna had seen the pair of them lounging in bed the day before. They didn’t give off any sort of air that suggested they did _anything_ in a minute. “Waves,” she said before they could call anyone over. “What do you know about Howard?”

“He always orders bottled beer and he doesn’t like peanuts.” Clearly, she had spent too long as a bar waitress, because Howard’s drinking habits was not the sort of information that Wynonna had been hoping to find. “I don’t know, he seems lonely I guess. I used to wonder if he was getting over losing the love of his life, but now I don’t know…” Waverly had more to say about the nature of Howard’s soul, but she glanced over at Wynonna and then hissed, “oh! You mean do I know why he’s a revenant? No, I don’t know. I can’t imagine him committing any crimes.”

“You could just ask him,” Bobo said. His voice was fresh-coffee warm and slap-on-the-ass close; appearing out of nowhere with absolutely no warning. 

Waverly shrieked with a little jump and half-spin that did nothing at all to hide the guilty look on her face. (Things like that is why she never got away with stealing cookies as a child.) Wynonna moved because Waverly did, she even took the precaution of grabbing her sister’s arm and there was nobody that could prove otherwise.

Bobo _smiled_ at them. He just _smiled_ the way any average human smiled at a silly thing happening in front of him. It was _unnerving_ to say the least, but if Bobo had to go off acting _normal_ the least he could do was look like his usual self. He certainly shouldn’t have shown up wearing a shirt with more holes than shirt and a pair of jeans that were outdated by decades. He wasn’t even wearing _shoes_. “Howard!”

“Boss?” Howard called back.

“These ladies want to know why Wyatt shot you.” 

Wynona frowned at him, because if she had _wanted_ to as Howard directly, she wouldn’t have been whispering behind his back. But Bobo didn’t even have the courtesy to be smug in her direction. He seemed to _honestly_ believe that he’d done her some kind of favor. Or at very least like he hadn’t introduced a potentially awkward conversation into what was meant to be a light-hearted but heartfelt thank you to a group of immortal demons who sacrificed themselves and their belongings to keep her alive.

No, Bobo didn’t care at all about how everyone was looking at Wynonna now. He just walked his skinny ass over to the bar and perched himself on a barstool like this was his everyday life.

Howard straightened his belt as if it was hiding the answers, “oh I,” he shrugged, “I robbed a lot of banks. Nobody got hurt--but I, uh. I picked the wrong crew one time and they killed some people and Wyatt didn’t care about how _I_ didn’t do the shooting.” 

\--

Dowdy had never met a conversation that he didn’t want to be a part of. He wasn’t memorable (and not just because of his face) for much besides his inability to stop moving. He’d never been one of Bobo’s more trusted men but he hadn’t ever distinguished himself as a troublesome sort either. He’d existed like a bit of lint that you were absolutely sure you’d just picked off your shirt but there it was again. And it was probably going to start talking if you looked at it.

“I was a thief,” Dowdy volunteered. The words were getting squeezed out of his mouth around the sausage links he’d already stolen. “He shot me right here,” and he stabbed himself in the ribs, not near enough his heart to think his death had been as instant as a man might prefer. “When he pulled the rag off my face he said, _my God you’re a kid_.”

Waverly was nodding along with that, pouting her lips out because she’d only barely managed to look old enough to vote in the past few years. She still didn’t look like she belonged in a bar no matter how tight her clothes got. 

“I do remember him saying something about that,” Henry said as he came down the stairs. He had taken his sweet time about making himself _presentable_ but he still hadn’t done more than finger-combed the mess of his hair and put on a shirt. Maybe he’d always had the look of a man who had gotten exactly what he wanted first thing in the morning, or maybe that was just Bobo _knowing_ that he had, but that smugness to his smile was unmistakable. “Thirteen years old, that’s what he said. He looked like he was thirteen years old. Dowdy I did _not_ know that was you he was talking about.”

Dolls face didn’t agree with the rest of his body about how he felt about Dowdy’s preening. While his face was attempting to convey a sense of amusement about Dowdy’s little wiggle of joy, his body was recoiling in horror. What men that had never been to hell just didn’t understand was that you had to have a sense of humor about things or you’d lose your fucking mind. 

“If everyone’s here, we can eat,” Dolls said.

“Were you thirteen?” Wynonna asked.

Henry had never been (as far as Bobo could tell) the sort of man that hurried anywhere, but he seemed to especially take his time about crossing in front of Bobo. They’d spent an entire day putting their hands all over one another but that didn’t seem to stop the almost compulsive way Henry reached out to touch him as he went past. It was just a brush of fingertips against the side of his face but it made him smile like an idiot. 

Bobo reached out his hand after Henry’s before he could get very far away and caught him hand without having any idea what the hell he was thinking. You’d think they would have gotten enough of spending time with one another, but Henry winked at him like he _knew_ something as he dragged a bar stool out far enough to sit on it.

Now, revenants did _not_ have to eat but that didn’t stop a single one of them from forming a proper line. Howard started them off because he’d been closest, and because the rest of them probably needed a good example. Dowdy, who had already been stealing food, started at the wrong end of the buffet by piling hot breakfast meat into his hands.

Dolls handed him a plate with a severe frown that wasn’t going to leave even a passing impression on the kid.

“Oh no, I wasn’t thirteen,” Dowdy said. “I think I was probably eighteen, but I could have been nineteen. My Mama never remembered exactly when I was born. You see it was…”

“We don’t need the whole history for a yes or no question, buddy,” Wynonna said.

Dowdy stared right at Wyonna’s face with his eyes going narrow and his boring face making an attempt at intimidation. He didn’t even look at the plate he’d been given but tipped his hands to let the pile of meat drop on top of it. Then he yanked the plate out of Dolls’ hands without so much as a grunt of gratitude and turned around to leave. 

“You hurt his feelings,” Waverly said softly.

“Did you want to know about his Mama?”

“David was hired to kill Wyatt,” Howard said.

“I wasn’t gonna do it,” David objected. “You try telling a man that you’re not going to shoot him after he’s already heard it from _everyone_. Look at me,” he motioned at his own body. “Who would even think that I was some master assassin? Who would even be dumb enough to try to kill Wyatt? They just thought they’d get away with it because Doc had gone missing. That just made Wyatt angrier.”

Lawrence had, up to this point, been doing an excellent impression of an overinflated balloon in the corner. He wasn’t known for being an active man to start with, so he hadn’t been milling around by the tables but waiting his turn in the comfort of a chair shivering under the weight of him. When he spoke, his voice always sounded like it was coming out of the bottom of a barrel of fish, he said, “angry men are easy to kill.”

Dowdy snorted from where he’d perched himself on the edge of a chair by the window, “if you hit them with a big enough rock, everyone’s easy to kill, Laurie.”

“It hasn’t worked on you yet,” Lawrence mumbled as he took a plate from Dolls. 

“So, uh, you killed people?” Dolls asked. There was a lot of judgment in his voice for a man who had most definitely killed at least as many people as Lawrence in half the time. 

“Who didn’t?” Lawrence said, “I mean, besides Bobo.”

The way Wynonna snorted at that was so automatic there was no chance she’d had time to do more than hear the words. Certainly she hadn’t thought about it at all before she said, “ _Bobo_?”

Howard’s face jerked up from smiling at his jam-smeared biscuit. “Why are you laughing? Wyatt shot Robert for no reason.”

“Well not _no_ reason,” Lawrence was heaping scrambled eggs onto his plate with careless splattering turns of the spoon. “The Sheriff Clootie thought Wyatt was too good a man to shoot someone on his side so he grabbed Robert like a shield.”

Waverly was doing everything she could _not_ to look at him. Pressed as close to her sister’s back as she was, every sideways glance she sent in his direction was only half visible. But he could feel how she kept looking. The whole feel of the room was changing the longer Lawrence kept talking. 

“Then Wyatt just left. He knew about the curse and he just left,” David said. “How long did it take you to die, Boss?”

Every face in the room turned to look at him, even Wynonna who had spent most of her time since she came back building the basis of her mission on the idea that he was the biggest monster in Purgatory. Maybe things were really going to change, or maybe she was never going to quite get over the things he _had_ done. But for now, everyone was just _waiting_ for an answer.

“That doesn’t matter,” Bobo said. 

“I heard Robert told him to do it!” Dowdy shouted from the corner. He didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard in the quiet. “I wasn’t there, but I heard it. There’s gossip in hell too. That was all they talked about when Robert arrived. Oh, we haven’t had one of these in so long, they said. It took me about six hours to die.”

Most of them had gone back to what they were doing. Lawrence was nothing but hunger and he wasn’t going to let something as trivial as an unanswered question keep him from eating.

\--

“You could have told me,” Wynonna hissed at him when they had the pretense of being out of earshot. She had a plateful of food she had grabbed without looking for, and a plastic fork gripped so tightly in her free hand it might have snapped in half. She was leaning into his space at the end of the table, doing her very best not to look at Robert even accidentally. 

“I _could_ have,” Doc agreed. His own plate was not as overwhelmed with food as hers. He did not want to appear to have a lack of gratitude for the gesture but he also did not fully trust either of the Earp sisters’ cooking. (Maybe more Wynonna than Waverly.) “However, what sort of gentleman would I be if I told secrets that were not mine to tell?”

It was simply too soon to know what sort of man Wynonna must have thought he was. Some folks could accept Doc as he was and some could not forget the unfortunate truth of his somewhat morally questionable character. Wynonna had been building an image of him in her mind that did not fit with the truth, and she didn’t even seem to know how she felt about that as she frowned at him right now. 

She was just _tired_ , when she said, “Are any of you who I think you are?”

“I’m afraid I do--” not know what you mean.

“Men,” she shook her head with an earthquake of a sigh. “So,” was spoken very loudly as she turned to face the small group of revenants clustered around a wobbling table, “this little breakfast is our, Waverly, Dolls, Nicole and _my_ way of saying thank you. None of you had to help us. None of you had to risk your life or,” she looked over at Bobo when she said, “limbs. But you did. We’ve always been on the opposite side of this curse and let’s be honest,” she dropped the plate so it landed on the table with a wet slap. “It fucking sucks.”

Dowdy coughed out a laugh that surprised even him. He’d been chewing something that went flying in Howard’s direction. It was only a bit of quick thinking and Howard’s hands folded over his food that saved his plate from the chewed wad of meat. “Understatement.”

“I say we find a way to end it once and for all,” Wynonna said, “and we find a way that doesn’t send you...fine gentlemen back to hell. Since, apparently some of you didn’t deserve it.”

“It’s just too bad you got the Iron Witch killed, she probably would have had something that could have helped us,” Dowdy said. “That’s okay, you got the Stone Witch and she was a _bitch_.”

Doc had been biding his time, lingering in populated areas of the room, waiting for Robert to work out if he wanted to be closer or farther away. At this state in their very young relationship it was hard to know which course of action was the best.

Robert dragged his feet through putting together a plate; he just so _happened_ to reach the end of the table where Doc was standing. Nobody could raise so much as an eyebrow to a man who took a predictable course. Why they just met here by accident (more or less). He made a noise down his chest like that explained anything.

Doc was never any good at things in moderation. He balanced his plate on one hand and used the other to lift Bobo’s face from where it was staring at the table top with increasing frustration. He kissed him so quickly that nobody who’d been blinking at the time would have seen it. 

Bobo growled after that kiss. His hand had moved to press against the small of Doc’s back and it lingered there while they just watched one another’s face. It wasn’t thoughts they were communicating back and forth; they were just stabilizing an equilibrium that had been disrupted. Doc wasn’t even _surprised_ that someone had seen through the thoroughly entertaining mask that Robert had worn for so many years but Bobo _was_. 

That was how it went when you got so good at telling stories you started believing them yourself. (Although, Bobo was a bit of a bastard. There was no denying that.)

“Table’s over here,” Dolls said.

“Unless you’re going back upstairs,” Wynonna added.

“If they make it up the stairs,” Lawrence muttered.

Dowdy slapped him on his meaty arm like some agreement had been made not to mention something.

“Where,” Doc said as he just noticed the lack, “ _is_ Whiskey Jim?”

David snorted and Howard stuck his hand across the table with a quick curl of his fingers. “I told you that he would tell him. I told you and you did not believe me. I said it.”

“What’s going on with that?” Wynonna asked.

Of course those poor boys were starved of anything like friendship. You gave them just one half a minute and a willing ear, and they were going to tell every secret they’d been collecting for the past hundred years. 

\--

Standing at the end of the bar with his head ducked down, flipping through a stack of papers filled up with important facts and figures, Bobo didn’t look anything at all like an imaginary man or a fully real monster. He looked like a man who owned a bar, growling over the price of bourbon these days. Maybe that was just a trick of the light, how he was wearing a stained old shirt with no arrogance to speak of. Maybe it was a lack of overt threat, he wasn’t even looking at her while she waited. 

Maybe it was just that something _had_ changed; somehow this man who had featured as a nightmare in all her recent dreams had become (very suddenly) just another person caught up in this shitstorm. 

“They could have killed us all,” she said. She wasn’t _trying_ to hang onto old wounds. She wasn’t _trying_ to make things more difficult. Waverly had been at the edge of that forest as sure as anyone, watching Bobo bleeding out of the dead weight of his mangled arms. She’d heard all about how he hadn’t even hesitated to save Wynonna. “You convinced me to bury that amulet so the Seven could get on the land, they could have killed us all.”

Bobo tipped his head back up without moving his body at all. “Not likely,” he said, “you see, when _that_ happened, the men didn’t question me. I told them not to touch you, and they _didn’t_.”

“Me,” Waverly repeated.

“Yes.”

“No,” this was the _important_ thing. That half-thought and terrible notion she couldn’t quite form. That Bobo knew things about her that nobody else did. If there were secrets about her own life, she damn sure deserved to know them. “ _Just_ me.”

Bobo did move then, slid the papers to the side so he could lean his elbow against the bar with his whole body facing her. “If you have a question for me…”

She _did_. Waverly was filled up with questions. There were a hundred thousand things that she wanted to know about how they had all ended up here. She’d been reading history books and scouring papers, putting together profiles on men that Wynonna might have to shoot. It had been tedious and it had taken _years_. All that time, she’d never considered that there might be a handful of allies hidden among their enemies. She sure as _hell_ never thought it would be this man. (Or did she? Bobo _had_ been her friend, once upon a time. He’d been a soft spot in a terrible childhood, always willing to sit and listen when she had to talk. She had been _heartbroken_ when he stopped showing up when she needed him.) “Would you answer them?”

“Not all questions have _good_ answers,” he said. “But,” his finger was tracing a shape on the bar top, “I would _try_ , as long as this,” and he motioned at the leftovers from breakfast and the last few people that hadn’t already left, “stays fair and equal.”

“Did you really tell Wyatt to shoot you?”

Bobo was _fearless_ in a way that all of his bravado had never allowed him to be before. Standing there dressed up like any other man, he said, “yes.”

“Did you know about the curse?”

Bobo growled but he said, “yes,” just as clearly.

Waverly was _tired_ and _hurt_ and the world that had made sense so recently didn’t make a single bit of sense _now_. Her voice hurt when she said, “how long did it take you to die?”

“Two days.”

“You knew you were going to hell for two days?” she whispered, “what did you do?”

He did _not_ want to tell her. He didn’t want to say a damn word. It was making his body go tense from his white knuckles to his bristling shoulders. But he cleared his throat to say, “I was helping seal the demon’s body so he couldn’t get out of his grave. See, Wyatt didn’t _kill_ him as thoroughly as we hoped.”

Waverly would have hugged him, she didn’t even question the impulse, except for how when her arms moved, he flinched back. Even that made her want to hug him more, if just for that minute, because any man who had ever chosen to spend his last miserable hours before hell _helping_ with no chance of reward deserved to be hugged. Any man that looked as confused by the very idea someone might touch him without hurting him _deserved_ to be hugged. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said, “we’ve got a chance to make it all right now. If you’re anything like that man who gave up his life, we’ll find a way. Whoever you were, you didn’t have to die for no reason.”

Bobo didn’t smile but his mouth twitched like he wanted to. The best he managed was a nod, because he was _hurt_. His voice was almost raw when he said, “you are an angel, Waverly.”

\--

Cryderman must have learned his lesson (for now) because he’d taken it upon himself to send over every possible paper that would allow the bar to open for operation just as soon as Bobo scribbled in the date. Hui had decided they could open by evening so that didn’t leave a whole lot of hours to figure out a thousand little details that needed deciding.

(First, but maybe not most important: where the hell his clothes were.)

The breakfast celebration had cleared out of the bar, leaving nothing but extra trash in the bin and the lingering smell of maple bacon. Even Hui who had all the earmarks of bringing in a sleeping bag and permanently living behind the bar had left with Howard over some need to get supplies. 

Henry was the only other person in the building, striking a casual pose as he leaned against the bar with his head tilted like an especially endearing puppy dog. Without his hat on, his greasy hair was hanging away from his face, catching the light and making it all the more glistening. “As we have nothing better to do with our time,” he said.

Bobo had things he needed to do. He had more things to do than he had time to do them. Just because he’d joined sides with the heir didn’t mean that he was relieved of trying to figure out a plan that would get him _out_. He’d been coasting by on making do and short-sighted choices. He didn’t have any regrets of how he ended up _here_ but there were things he knew that would require _easing_ into. “Are you ever going to get enough?” 

“I am of the opinion that a man who lives by the law of moderation is missing out on the ecstatic joys of living life to the fullest. I,” he touched his own chest, “have never been a man of moderation. I have tried every manner of drug available to me and I have enjoyed almost all of them. And _still_ , out of all those drugs and all those beautiful women and those virile men, I have not found any that are capable of satisfying me as fully as you.”

How the hell was a man supposed to respond to that?

“ _However_ , not all touch is meant to be sexual. Sometimes,” he reached over to rest his hand across the back of Bobo’s, “it is an expression of the sort of love that goes deeper and lasts far longer.”

Wyatt was a sonofabitch for enough reasons already, but any man who had John Henry Holliday waiting for him and got caught up on pettiness instead of being thankful was a fucking idiot. Bobo didn’t have much experience with being loved, at least not since he was a child, but just the softness of that touch on his hand settled all the rattling places inside of him. 

Bobo rolled his hand so he could slide his fingers up under the cuff of Henry’s shirt and curl them around his wrist. He could feel the man’s pulse, slow and steady, as they filled up the silence with half-thought things. “So, I’m really better than opium?”

Henry laughed, he pulled Bobo by the hand so they were leaning into one another, smiling over nothing. “I have already said that I am no longer willing to inflate your sexual ego without some proof.”

\--

Dolls made it easy to forget that he’d been _shot_. Life would have been a hell of a lot easier if Wynonna could work out if she was pissed off about or turned on by the sort of stoic, masculine indifference to pain that Dolls _had_ to be employing. Even now, sitting in a squeaky desk chair with his head tipped to the side and his face turned to watch her work on changing the dressing, Dolls wasn’t so much as flinching at her inexpert attempts at wound care. 

“It’s been a hell of a week,” Wynonna whispered as she patted down the edges of the tape.

“It’s Tuesday.”

It was just bad manners to slap a man with a bullet wound so she had to make do with frowning at him. “You know what I mean. I can’t even _remember_ everything that’s happened.” 

If her fingertips took their time about lifting away from Dolls’ warm skin, that was nobody’s business but hers. Part of that could have been nothing but the need to be physically _close_ to someone. If there was ever a time for semi-meaningless comfort sex, it was certainly in the direct aftermath of a bloody siege. 

“Well,” Dolls picked his shirt up out of his lap and shook it out so he could ease his arm into it before he pulled it over his head. “I don’t know about what _happened_ , but if we’re shifting our focus to breaking the curse we’re going to have to start all over again. All this information we have was meant to help us track down demons. I _suggest_ we figure out what kind of questions we can ask Bobo.”

“Like _that_ ,” Wynonna said. She stepped back so she could lean against the other desk. “How _trippy_ is that? Like, Bobo’s been secretly a good guy this whole time? He wasn’t a...mass murdering bad guy? He just did a good thing and went to hell? Everything I’ve ever been told feels like it might not even be real. And I’m just supposed to--what? I’m just supposed to move on?”

Everything had just changed too fast. She was still a few days behind catching up with the new things she knew. Last week this time, she was committed to killing every revenant in the Ghost River Triangle just so she could end this fucking curse, and now she was aligned with a handful of misfits to _break_ the curse. 

Dolls stood up to tug his shirt down, and for no reason at all (surely) he seemed to drift into her space. She may have harbored a personal preference toward men that were larger than her but that was just a matter of basic biology. She challenged any woman to prove they weren’t the tiniest bit turned on by the idea of…

The door was kicked open and Dolls made a low-dragging sound of annoyance. His dour face was working toward one of those tight-lipped smile-frowns he did when he wasn’t sure which expression he was going to need. His body turned away from hers so they were both looking at the humorless blonde woman sneering at the office like it offended her. Of course dressed the way she was, everything that was not currently kissing her ass was probably offensive to her.

“Lucado,” Dolls said like it _meant_ something.

“Whose that?”

“I’m his boss,” the woman said with a smile like a bag of crack needles. She didn’t spare a second glance at Wynonna but settle the full depth of her judgmental arrogance on Dolls. “I looked in _vain_ for the report from you that explained why there was a demon siege at the Earp Homestead. I checked my inbox three times just now,” she held up her phone, “still empty.”

“What,” Wynonna coughed before she could think through what she even meant to say, “ _demon_ siege? Lady, I don’t know what kind of drugs you’re on but they must be primo.”

Dolls turned with an exaggerated slowness, his whole body seemed to flex in sections until he was staring at her with his eyes so wide open it was a wonder his eyeballs didn’t just fall out. 

Lucado was eying her with almost the exact opposite expression. Her eyes were so narrow her face was pinched half-shut. She tapped on the screen of her phone and pulled up a photo of the Homestead (post-siege), “so this is _not_ a photo of a dozen ugly RVs creating a barricade around your homestead? I suppose this,” her thumb swiped across the screen to show the swiss-cheese-esque ground surrounding the RVs, “isn’t a field full of bullets?” and she swiped one more time, “and this is not a mobile home that was flipped over by a demon that was working under your direction?”

“I mean,” Wynonna said, “those are pictures but _demons_? You better watch where you say that around here, people will think you’re _crazy_.”

“What my deputy,” Dolls said in a rush, “is trying to say is that…”

“Oh I think your ‘ _deputy_ ’ is doing just fine speaking for herself,” Lucado said. She tucked her phone back into her pocket the way a man might tuck a gun back into it’s holster. There she stood, like she had a loaded weapon and a winning streak as her smile turned even _meaner_. “It’s obvious that you’ve lost control of the situation here in Purgatory. I’ve been sent in to clean up _your_ mess. If you do not want to be _useful_ , then I am very happy to consider you one of the hostiles. I have been looking forward to the moment that the home office _finally_ sees you for what you are.”

Dolls clenched his jaw but he didn’t say _anything_. Subservient was a strange look for the man that had been a real pain in her ass ever since he showed up in town. This man standing there with his shoulders tensed and his mouth shut had spent these past months bossing her around like he was the top of the food chain. 

The only useful thing about answering to nobody was that people like Lucado with their sharp-dressed bullshit were on the same level as the revenant bastards that she’d sent back to hell not so long ago. Wynonna pushed herself away from the desk and Dolls’ hand moved like he was going to hold her back.

“Lady,” Wynonna said, “I don’t think you have _any idea_ exactly what kind of shitstorm you are about to set off. So I’m going to offer you exactly one chance to go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

“You’re adorable,” Lucado said. “Unfortunately for you and your attempt at _intimidation_ , we’ve been here in Purgatory for a while and we don’t need you. We know all about your demon friends, their faces? Their names?”

“Lucado,” Dolls said from behind her, “you really don’t have any idea what you’re dealing with.”

Wynonna was having vivid daydreams of punching this smug brittle bitch right in the face. She had the look like she’d never been in a fight in her entire life. Like she’d never so much as balled up her hand in the attempt to throw a punch. “Maybe you should look at those pictures again,” Wynonna said. “And ask yourself if you brought enough men.”

“I think you should ask yourself the same question,” Lucado whispered.

Wynonna didn’t need greater numbers. If living through the bullshit of this past week had taught her anything at all, it was that greater numbers didn’t stand a single goddamn chance against the sort of men she had on her side. Lucado was smirking at her like she’d won this round because she thought she understood something she couldn’t begin to imagine. 

That was alright by Wynonna, bitches like this deserved to hang themselves. 

Wynonna smiled at her without saying a word. She stepped around Lucado like she was nothing but a bit of trash that missed the can and snapped her fingers, “let’s go get the big guns, Dolls.”

\--

Bobo Del Rey was _cheating_. The only sort of man lower than a cheat was a horse thief, and somehow, that satisfied smile spread across Robert’s face was one of the most _endearing_ sights he had seen in all his life. He was proclaiming his innocence with the palms of his hands showing and a laugh bubbling into his voice, “It's not me.”

“I suppose I am to believe that all of my darts are curving on their own accord? Yet yours seem to be unaffected by this invisible force?” Doc wasn’t a sore loser but he damn sure wasn’t _bad_ at darts either. A man did become infamous for his aim without being able to _actually_ aim. 

“I thought you were the greatest gunslinger that ever lived,” Bobo said with absolutely no sense of shame for being a blatant liar, “shouldn’t you be able to adapt to unfavorable conditions?”

“ _Unfavorable conditions_ means there’s _wind_ , or dust in your eyes, or your target is running, it does not mean that a smirking bastard who can control metal is altering the course of your darts after you throw them. How,” he flung his arm out to the side to motion at the dart board (and his shamefully misplaced darts), “should I _adapt_ my throw?”

Bobo’s smile was feral and pink and oh-so- _pleased_. Both of his hands were resting on his own hips because he was taking entirely too much pleasure in being aggravating. “I don’t know what you are talking about Henry,” said the man who twitched his fingers as he lifted one of his hands and brought all of the darts flying back into his grip, “I can’t move the darts.”

The door banging open behind him might have been the only thing that kept Doc from wrapping his hands around the bastard’s throat. There was no telling what he meant to do once he got his hands on Bobo but even if the impulse was born of impatience, it certainly didn’t feel violent.

“Bobo!” Wynonna shouted as she strode into the room. Her boots were hitting the floor with enough force the sound echoed through the mostly empty room. Dolls was jogging to keep up with her but moving with none of the anger. “Grab your fucking shit up coat, we’ve got to go fuck some shit up.”

“Wynonna,” Dolls said like he’d already said it a half-dozen times, “you don’t know Lucado the way that I do. We need to handle this _carefully_.”

“Handle what?” Bobo asked. His smile had twisted up into confusion that had taken all the humor right out of his body. He threw the darts with a careless gesture but they all landed in the dart board regardless. 

Dolls was between Wynonna and Bobo with his arms spread and his palms facing each of them. Maybe that kind of stance would have made sense back when they were enemies, but seeing how everyone was an ally now, the attempt to keep them apart didn’t make as much sense. “Let’s just be smart about this. Lucado just wants a specimen, all we have to do is figure out who we can give her--there has to be someone left.”

“We just took out half the revenants left in the triangle, a group of hired assassins and a cult leader with a magic shapeshifting bear-wolf, if you think one bitch in an overpriced coat is going to scare me now, you really need to think again.” 

“Who is Lucado?” Doc asked.

“His boss.”

“She’s part of the BBD and we need to handle this _carefully_ , unless you’ve forgotten what happened to the last place--”

Wynonna was far past the patience it would have taken to listen to Dolls. Doc couldn’t blame her, just the thought of another confrontation was twisting into his guts like a hot knife. He couldn’t figure out if it was _anger_ or just plain _exhaustion_. Maybe it was a mix of the two, like the look on Wynonna’s face.

Rather than waste another moment letting Dolls speak, she leaned to the side so she was looking right at Bobo, “they’re coming after the revs.”

“My coat’s at the homestead,” Bobo said.

“Guys this isn’t the way to handle this.”

Doc picked up his drink to down the last of it, “I’ll get my guns.”

\--

Waverly hadn’t been doing anything at all when her phone rang; she wasn’t annoyed because she’d been interrupted at the start of something. No, she was _annoyed_ because she’d been at the start of _nothing_. As much as she loved her sister and Nicole, all she wanted was five uninterrupted moments to do absolutely nothing at all. 

No. She wanted five hours of uninterrupted nothing.

She wanted five full days of having as much space as she wanted.

Maybe five weeks after all the shit they’d been put through lately. 

But no, there was some new problem. Whoever this new problem was, she had set Wynonna off into full-on, unstoppable _Wynonna_ and that meant someone had to go into town (and bring Bobo’s coat) and try to keep a bad situation to a sort of acceptable level. 

“I just,” Waverly grit through her teeth as she stomped down the partially destroyed yard toward the modern art sculpture garden of bullet-ridden RVs, “wanted to take a _bath_. I just wanted to lay in my _bed_ in my _pajamas_.”

She didn’t even know which one of the RVs Bobo’s coat had been thrown into. 

“I had a book!” she shouted at nobody. “I was going to _read_!” 

The first RV to the right of the gate had started to collapse under its own weight. The doorway had started folding over itself so that it was more of a triangle than a rectangle. She peeked in without sticking any part of her body across the threshold (because with their current luck it would collapse on her head) and didn’t see anything that looked like the skin of two dozen squirrels stitched together into one ugly coat.

“I bought cookies.” She would have _stomped_ but the ground was so kicked up from the assault that moving too quickly or with too much force made her feet sink into the soft dirt. As cold as it was getting at night, the ground shouldn’t be _soft_ but there she was, tiptoeing her way down to the second RV. “Whoever it is, I am really going to be--”

“Miss!” was a screeching sound that hit her ears half-seconds before a set of arms wrapped fully around her ribs and a full-speed body knocked into hers. The momentum launched them both forward and it was only the purposeful twist of the body pressed all up against hers that turned them enough to keep from slamming them both into the ripped edge of the RV wall. 

She handed on the body that hit the ground with a shriek of her own.

“We can’t stay here,” Dowdy said without taking even a single second to worry about how she had to have crushed sensitive bits of his body, “there’s men with badges and guns and I don’t know how you feel about it but they definitely don’t seem to like me. I don’t mean to be so forward with you like I have been, Miss Waverly, but they shot at me already and I think they’re going to do it again.”

“I have to get Bobo’s coat,” Waverly said. It wasn’t as important as not getting shot and even she knew that, but the words just tumbled out of her mouth. She rolled forward so she was on her hands and knees even as Dowdy stared at her with his mouth hanging open. 

“What?” he gasped.

“Wynonna called and she needs--”

But a man shouting, “if you stop running this will be easier for everyone,” interrupted her.

“He doesn’t need the coat!” Dowdy hissed at her, “Dumbo’s feather, you know. He doesn’t need the damn coat.” He didn’t waste time trying to make sure she understood him, but rolled up onto his knees beside her as he hauled her off the ground with his skinny arms around her body again. “You’ve got a car, don’t you? I think a car would help.”

“I have a Jeep,” she started running because he was doing most of the jogging for both of them. He didn’t let go of her until they reached the gate, and his arms loosened as he got stuck there. His whole body folded down from his knees to his elbows so he was ducked as low and as close to the gate as he could get. “Shit,” Waverly hissed because he couldn’t cross the threshold. “I’ll be a second. Stay right there.”

“Ok,” Dowdy whispered. “Although if they by chance happen to shoot me, don’t worry about it. Just let boss know what happened and let them take me.”

Waverly turned on her heels and ran across the yard to the Jeep. She hadn’t put on a good pair of shoes because she hadn’t expected to be running for her life (again). Still, she slammed into the door of the Jeep in record time and threw herself into the driver’s seat without so much as a thought about her seatbelt. 

She dug into the glovebox for the spare handgun she kept stashed (a girl could not be too careful) for similar emergencies. Dowdy was on the other side of the gate, sinking into the slope of the ditch when she screeched to a halt half-through the gate. There was a man in black combat gear rounding the curve of the barricade, clutching a gun fit for warfare. 

“Get off my land!” she shouted at him. 

Dowdy yanked open the driver’s side door with a sorry sounding, “excuse me, Miss, just move over a little.” He was pushing at her before she had a chance to even understand what he was saying. Between the shocking strength of his pushes and her flexibility, she managed to switch seats without having to give up her aim. 

“This doesn’t involve you,” the man in black shouted back at her, “just give me the demon.”

“Rude,” Dowdy whispered, “that’s just rude.”

Waverly squeezed the trigger to fire off a warning shot that splintered the fence post less than a foot from the man. “We call them revenants around here!” she shouted back.

“Going,” Dowdy sang at her. The Jeep lurched forward with no intent of ever slowing down. The wind was blowing through the open windows with such force her hair was snapping as it whipped around her face. They were out of sight of the man in black in _seconds_ with Dowdy reaching over to pull her right in the passenger seat. “If you would just put on your belt, Miss. I would feel better about everything if you would just secure yourself properly.”

\--

Deputy Haught has taken the precaution of parking her vehicle just out of view of the transport vehicle. The car was still running but she was standing next to it, leaning across the open door with a pair of binoculars pressed to her face. “They brought David in about ten minutes ago, he doesn’t look like he’s in distress.”

Wynonna was filled up with the sort of anger that made a woman careless. Bobo had seen it from the otherside often enough to know how useless all that anger could be against an enemy. But he’d also gotten a headstart on knowing how to direct it if he needed to. “David’s the skinny one?”

“Yes,” Doc said.

“They had Howard too,” Deputy Haught said, “but he just walked away while they were talking. I don’t know why David hadn’t just left, they don’t check on them.” 

David lacked initiative and probably imagination too. He would just sit there and wait until something else happened and then maybe he’d decide if he was going to do something about it. It didn’t look like he was in any sort of distress, leaning forward with his arms on his knees, picking at his fingernails. 

“Which one is Lucado?” Bobo asked.

“I don’t see her,” Dolls was leaning against the top of the car with his own (fancier) binoculars, “she’s probably still back at headqua--Wynonna!”

“Listen up shitheads!” Wynonna shouted as soon as she got her boots on the road. She was one brilliantly short-sighted girl against a cluster of men carrying automatic rifles paid to hunt down demons. She pulled Peacemaker out of it’s holster and fired a shot into the air. “I am only going to say this once. Let my friend out of the truck, pack up your shit, and get out of my town.”

Dolls just sighed.

Doc had followed along after Wynonna as soon as she’d started walking. He hadn’t even made a single sound as he did it; he didn’t even pause. No, because he was a loyal idiot with a soft spot for Wynonna Earp (no matter what he said on the matter). 

“Shit,” Deputy Haught whispered as she threw her binoculars back into the car. She slammed the car door closed as she pulled her weapon. She didn’t move with the same fearlessness because she was (at least) smart enough to know they were very severely overpowered. 

It didn’t even matter if those morons with the guns _could_ shoot; you didn’t have to aim when you had an automatic weapon. 

“Hey Boss,” Howard said. “Dowdy’s got Waverly, he wants to know if you want them here or should he take her somewhere else?”

Bobo didn’t want any of them _here_. He didn’t even want to be _here_. He’d spent the past eighty years doing one hell of a good job not drawing BBD’s attention. It was only a matter of time before someone in a cramped office going through a file cabinet discovered there was a demon curse in Purgatory. They’d written it all down when they’d come to collect the widows a hundred and thirty years ago. 

But, they were here and it had been a long damn time since he’d had any right to tell Waverly what she ought to do. (If he’d ever had it.) “Tell him to take Waverly wherever she wants to go. What about Hui? Lawrence?”

Howard snorted, “all of those men together couldn’t move Lawrence, boss. Hui’s good; he’s back at the bar.”

“Are you going to help?” Dolls demanded.

Wynonna was doing a fine job at making a bad situation worse all on her own. There were five men laughing at her but not a single one of them was pointing the barrel of a gun in her direction. “I just want your boss,” she was saying _very loudly_.

Dolls got tired of waiting for an answer to the question, he slid past Bobo as he pulled his own weapon. There weren’t many soldiers in Purgatory but the few that had passed through all walked in exactly the same way as Dolls did stealth-jogging to catch up with Wynonna.

“You got to help them, boss,” Howard said.

Bobo had every intention of helping them. He could feel the skin-warm metal of those guns even from this distance. He was wrapping a long string of energy around the aged transport truck, feeling out where the weak spots were. This was just one more shitty day in a shitty week, and all he wanted was to be back in the empty bar, watching Henry’s face getting redder every time his darts failed to hit the bullseye.

Bobo didn’t anymore people shooting at him.

He didn’t want any more revenants being used as bait.

He didn’t want another goddamn human with a big mouth telling him what he could and couldn’t do. 

“You must be _Mr._ Holliday.” The words were echoing out of the mouth of a smart-dressed woman with a hateful face. She was striding up the road from a car so shiny there must have been a man hired just to polish it once a day. Her heels clicked on the pavement as her hips slid with ease and confidence. She was some hot-shit coming to a pause behind the men with guns. Her arms crossed over her chest as she focused solely on Henry. “I heard you have _exceptional_ health, Mr. Holliday. You must, you’re what--a hundred sixty?”

“I don’t have a problem with you, miss. As long as you do the responsible thing and let my friend out of that truck, we can all go our separate ways.”

The woman smiled at Henry like he was a stupid child about to get a beating. “I was thinking you could get into the truck with him and _maybe_ I would make sure this whole area didn’t end up a smoking crater in the ground.”

“Well shit,” Howard said softly.

\--

Wynonna had not heard a stupider or more suicidal string of words uttered in all her life. (Even when she’d said basically the same damn thing, at least she’d been facing off against Doc and Bobo _before_ they decided fucking wasn’t enough.) She didn’t even look at Doc, because just about the safest person in all of the fucking world at that moment was John Henry Holliday. 

No, she looked over at the truck, where David perked up from picking his nails with a sudden need to ease over the half-hearted gate that was ‘trapping’ him. He dropped to the ground on the outside of the truck a half-second before the entire back end of it shuddered and screamed and slapped flat like a can that had been stomped on.

The men in front of them were shifting their stances to finally start pointing their guns somewhere, but the weapons jerked forward away from their bodies so suddenly not a single one of them managed to keep a decent grip. 

Dolls had been the _last_ man to join their line, but he was the first one to drop his head so his chin was hanging down to his chest. He just shook his head as he tucked his gun back into the holster. 

“You come into _my town_ ,” Bobo shouted. Maybe there was an element missing from that rage, the phantom notion of a big ass coat, but the _anger_ was big enough. The guns he’d pulled away from the men went flying behind as he went through the stretch of space between Wynonna and Doc. 

And Doc, who had never seemed very intimidated to start with, put away his gun to retrieve a smoke instead.

“You threaten my _men?”_ Bobo shouted. His right hand was held up into the air, his fingers were spread as wide as they could go as the truck he’d crushed like a soda can started rocking back and forth. That mark on his back was burning so brightly it was turning his shirt black from the heat alone. His voice was gravel and rocks and something like hellfire, “you want to see a demon?”

The truck didn’t tip but _flip_ all at once. It spun like it had a pole stuck through it, crashing into the road behind the men and Lucado with such force that it knocked half of them off their feet. 

Lucado’s whole face was white as a sheet, her mouth was snapped open with a shout of fear. All of that arrogance that had walked her ass right into this problem was a quiver in her knees now. “You don’t know who you’re playing with,” she snapped.

Wynonna couldn’t see Bobo’s face, but she could see how he tipped his head, how his shoulders tipped forward. His arms were behind his back because he didn’t need any hands to take on someone with no chance at winning. 

“ _You_ ,” Bobo hissed at her, “don’t know who _you_ are playing with.” And when he moved it was a sudden blur of motion, crossing the space where he’d been standing to where she was half leaning away from him. He didn’t touch her at all, but he was so close to her body that it must have felt like fingers on her throat. 

“You going to just let him keep going?” Wynonna asked.

Doc pulled the cigarillo out of his mouth, “he does seem to be enjoying himself.”

“ _Doc_ ,” Dolls said, “she can call in jets, with missiles, and kill us all.”

Doc’s expression seemed to say, _not if we kill her first_ , but he heaved a sigh as he stuck the cigarillo back in his mouth. He straightened his hat before he went forward. 

Bobo was talking too quietly to be heard, but that mark on his back hadn’t dimmed at all. He was still shivering angry, so whatever he was whispering into Lucado’s face _had_ to involve dismemberment and death. 

“How are we going to move this truck?” Nicole hissed at them. She was the only one still pointing her gun at anyone. The five men hadn’t even fully recovered from watching the truck get flipped over and not a single one of them had thought this moment through well enough to bring a second gun with them. It seemed almost mean to keep pointing Peacemaker at them when they were so disarmed. 

“Bobo can move it,” Wynonna said, “he flipped it once, he can flip it again.”

Doc’s hand slid across the back of Bobo’s bent shoulders and just that slight touch of his hand was enough to make that blistering mark fade under Bobo’s shirt. Bobo leaned into the touch on instinct, straightening up away from Lucado so he was matching Doc’s stance. 

“Now,” Doc said, “it seems that we have all gotten off on the wrong foot here. I am a forgiving man,” no he wasn’t, “so I am willing to look past all of this. In fact, just so there’s not any hard feelings between us, I am even willing to provide you with a little going-away present.”

There was no way Lucado could recover from being so thoroughly humiliated, but she tugged at the button of her shirt like she could reset everyone’s memory. Her chin was tipped up without any hint of the same arrogance. “It would have to be a _damn good_ going away present.”

At this point, being able to walk back to her car should have been enough of a good-bye gift.

“I hear that you are interested in a demon specimen. It just so happens that I know where you might find one. Of course, he is likely to be a little...crispy already, but I am sure that will not be a problem for you.”

David had taken a wide circle to get back around to standing next to her. He looked as interested in what was happening before him as he had been in being held captive. “Howie,” he said without looking for the man. “Who are they giving away?”

“Chester,” Howard said.

Wynonna looked over her shoulder at where Howard was texting someone on his phone. “Whose Chester?”

“One of the revenants that tried to rape Doc,” he looked up, “uh, I guess your sister decided we need a drink? She wants everyone to meet at the bar? She said, dress slutty?”

“I guess that’s a fair trade,” Lucado said loudly enough to be heard by anyone that might still be harboring the desire to shoot her. “If this...demon is where you say he is, everything will be fine.”

Bobo’s answer was a growl and Doc smiled at her in a way that was no less dangerous. 

\--

Waverly had stopped him at the door, wearing what amounted to underwear, and stripped his shirt off because this was a _slutty party_. She had been disappointed to find that he was wearing an undershirt but she had _not_ immediately demanded he remove that as well. 

As unnerving as it was to have Waverly Earp remove his clothing for him, it was twice as upsetting for Bobo who had been one step behind him at the door. 

“Take your shirt off,” Waverly had snapped at Bobo who nobody would have characterized as shy or prudish before that moment, “or you can’t come in.”

The fact that Bobo owned the building had not swayed her, and when Wynonna (one step behind Bobo) had gotten tired of the argument, she had just grabbed the ripped back of Bobo’s shirt and pulled it part so the thin old cotton split down the center. 

Nudity was not, by itself, inherently sexual and therefore their overall lack of shirts did not necessarily indicate any degree of sluttiness. Certainly, the majority of them didn’t even have a passing sexual interest in the others. Doc hadn’t spent any time working out where the revenants interests lay, but he knew for sure that the human sector was all paired off with one another.

The slutty aspect came with the drinking. Hui, Dowdy and Waverly had covered the length of the bar with drinks made up of funny names. They were just about every color and combination that Doc had ever seen (and a few he wished he had not). They started on the far end of the bar with Angel’s Tits and worked their way through a long, long line of drinks with names like Screaming Orgasm and Leg Spreader.

A good five minutes was spent with the whole shirtless lot of them laughing themselves red in the face because Hui slid a little shot glass full of layered liquor across the bar and Waverly leaned after it to say,

“This one’s just for you, Doc.”

And Dowdy just about choked himself saying, “it’s called Cock-Sucking Cowboy.”

Hell, even Bobo was laughing so Doc just picked up the little shot glass with a tip of his hat (or he would have, if he’d been wearing a hat still) and poured the whole disgusting thing into his mouth at once. 

Someone had turned on music halfway through their attempt to drink themselves to death. Wynonna had dragged Howard away from the bar (much to his surprise) so she wasn’t out in the middle of the room dancing by herself. Howard didn’t have any fucking idea what he was expected to do, but he did his best. 

Waverly and Nicole weren’t dancing so much as laying on one another while standing up.

Doc didn’t need any liquor at all to be what Waverly considered _slutty_ , but he did enjoy that little bit of extra freedom to throw his very few inhibitions to the wind. Whatever the witch had done to him to give him longevity and the ability to _heal_ , it hadn’t given him any special tolerance to things like liquor. (No, indulgence had done that.) Bobo and the other revenants had drank just as much liquor as any of them, and looked half-as-careless.

No, Bobo was standing there facing the bar, picking through the leftover drinks to find one that wasn’t potentially the worst thing he’d ever been forced to swallow. Now Doc would not qualify himself as a cowboy but he certainly had sucked a cock before and not even the most memorably unpleasant among that lot had left such a lasting flavor in his mouth. 

The drink that Bobo had finally selected looked fruity and fresh-tasting. It must have had some kind of ridiculous name as well, but that wasn’t as important as how Bobo tasted it once and then decided it was good enough for a second drink. Doc waited for him to swallow it before he reached over to get his hand on Bobo’s face.

It was far from his most coordinated attempt to get his tongue in the other man’s mouth, but that didn’t seem to make it any less welcome. Bobo’s body shifted to make space for Doc and both his hands dropped down to grab him by the waist without even a stutter. His mouth did taste like some kind of fruit and liquor, a happy, fresh, bright flavor. It covered the ashiness of his usual taste almost perfectly. 

Doc had been aiming to wash this taste out of his mouth, but Bobo’s fingers eased off his waist to grab him by the ass. There was a thunder of noise around them, music and laughter and voices. The sound of the bar jostled from where Doc’s back hit it, and the cups getting knocked over when his elbow went looking for somewhere to rest. 

He wound one of his hands into Bobo’s hair as he kissed him, pushing back against the hips grinding against him. They hadn’t properly fucked in the bar, certainly not up against the bar like they were. Bobo was strong enough to hold him and even if he weren’t, the bar was sturdy enough to take it. There were little details missing from the plan, things like privacy and preparation, but just in that moment, Doc didn’t care about anything but the hands squeezing his ass and the promise they were making to his body. 

“Too slutty!” Waverly shouted, “that’s _too slutty_.”

Bobo pulled back like he’d been burned by the touch, and Doc sagged against the bar without those hands holding him on his feet. Nobody looked terribly offended, not even Waverly who giggled into Nicole’s hair, but Bobo was blushing bright pink anyway. 

Doc got his feet back under him, straightened his undershirt where it had been pushed up off his belly, and reached over to grab Bobo by the belt. “Come on,” he said. He pulled the man behind him to a chorus of whistles and catcalls, across the room and up the stairs.


End file.
